The new thing in my life is that somehow I have gotten to be old. Not just no-trifling-with-life middle-aged, but old. This means, basically, that sooner than I like to think, I will be dead. Then, nothing will matter--but till then, my intention is to concentrate my dwindling faculties and capacities on the things that do matter, and, as always, on trying to figure out what those things are. There are precious few advantages to being old (certainly not wisdom), but there are some: One's piano technique just keeps getting better and better. If one has assiduously read many French novels, essays, plays and short stories over a long life, one finds at the end of it that one can also speak French, and understand it when people speak it to you. And, as they say, the years really do go quick. One learns to let loose of the reins, so to speak, and let life take its head (it will anyway).